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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28916067">Isolation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EpicNerd/pseuds/EpicNerd'>EpicNerd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chloé Bourgeois &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Friendship, Chloé Bourgeois Being Chloé Bourgeois, Chloé Bourgeois Needs a Hug, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Enemies to Friends, Good Chloé Bourgeois, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Deserves Better</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:08:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,820</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28916067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EpicNerd/pseuds/EpicNerd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette’s perspective of Chloé changes significantly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloé Bourgeois &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Isolation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Marinette was crying in the bathroom, but that wasn’t anything new or even unusual anymore. Stress was the only emotion she felt anymore due to expectations placed on her by others and by herself. By herself…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When someone else came in, she stifled her tears within her stall, not wanting to be heard. She feverishly wiped at her eyes, trying to erase her tears. Chloé stood in front of one of the mirrors, reapplying her lipstick since lunch had passed. Deciding that she was composed enough, Marinette steeled herself before leaving the stall, walking over to a sink on the other side of the room from Chloé upon seeing the blonde. She kept her head down so that the other girl wouldn’t be able to see how red and puffy her eyes were, and she was glad that she had something to do with her hands so that their trembling wasn’t obvious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ugh, I didn’t pack my eyeliner,” Chloé grumbled to herself as she gave up searching through her purse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want to borrow mine?” Marinette asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky as she felt as she threw away the paper towel she used to dry her hands before reaching into her purse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She held out her own eyeliner to Chloé even though she didn’t like her, but the mayor’s daughter just sneered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gosh, why are you always butting in, Marinette Dupain-Cheng? Can’t you tell that you’re not wanted?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Marinette’s face twitches, and her eyes darken. If Chloé knew better, she would’ve walked away at that. But, it was just the two of them in the bathrooms, so there were no teachers around to reprimand them. Marinette’s hand retracted, the eyeliner slipping back into her purse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Seriously, you should take a page out of Ladybug’s book and only show up when called upon. You’d be a lot less annoying then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Marinette’s hands curled into fists as her body went stiff. She was tired, and she was stressed, and she was done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You wanna know why I’m so nosey, Chloé? It’s because I’m terrified!” Marinette exclaimed, not caring what she said anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blonde wasn’t expecting that kind of answer, or any answer at all, for that matter. Keeping her composure, her arms stay crossed over her chest as she refuses to say anything, allowing Marinette to continue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m terrified that, one day, my friends will wake up and realize how useless I am, how much they don’t need me! And…if I can’t help them…then what the heck am I even good for?” the heroine asked rhetorically, the fire in her heart being doused quickly as she was forced to think about how small she felt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sliding down the wall, Marinette pulls her knees up to her chin, burying her face in her arms. Ever so slightly, she trembled as she tried to stifle the sound of her own crying as she lost the will to hold back her tears. She had never even admitted this fear to her diary or Tikki, so to confess to having the thought that consumes her day after day sent an adrenaline rush through her with a note attached that said to run.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Marinette?” Chloé said hesitantly, the accusatory tone not her intention.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m scared of being alone, okay? Ever since that time that I had to sit in the back of the classroom, even though it didn’t even last a full day, made me think about…how replaceable I am. And I can’t stand it. If no one needs me, then what’s the point of even keeping me around? They’ll just leave me again!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chloé gazed at Marinette, conflicted over whether to turn her nose up in disgust or sympathize with the other girl. On the one hand, Marinette was someone she hated and was hated by. On the other hand, she knew the fear of abandonment like her own reflection.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So just ditch them first. They can’t stop being your pathetic little friends if you aren’t friends to begin with,” Chloé said, making the solution sound as if it were obvious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t feel like being vulnerable, especially in front of Marinette, so she decided to get the conversation over with as soon as possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s easy for you to say; you don’t even want to be friends with anyone but Sabrina, Adrien, and Ladybug.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Grow up, Marinette. Those who get what they want get it by doing something before something is done to them. That’s how people become successful, that’s how people come into a position of power, and that’s how you keep from crying like a baby on the bathroom floor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two girls glared at each other, Marinette looking up from her arms and Chloé looking down from her own crossed over her chest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m feeling nice, so here’s some advice. If you’re so afraid of being alone, then it’s better to be such by your own choice rather than the choice of others,” Chloé said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Deciding that she was done with the situation, Chloé moved to leave. Marinette didn’t. The blonde hesitate halfway into the locker room, her hand holding the door open. Marinette put her head back down, her chest rising and falling shakily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you insist on being their friend, then stop thinking that you have something to prove,” Chloé said as softly as she could manage before leaving the room, letting the door slowly swing shut behind her.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>Chloé, dejected, turns off the customized search light that she hoped would summon Ladybug so that the blonde could become Queen Bee again. And yet she found herself alone, watching from the roof as Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated the akuma without her. Hugging herself, Chloe’s lower lip quivered as she shuffled towards the stairwell door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>However, a gust of wind makes her stop mid-step before she turns around and rushes back out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey! Ladybug!” Chloé huffed, her eyebrows furrowing as her hands balled into fists.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The red heroine glances over her shoulder as she swung through the air before sighing and twisting to circle back around and land on the roof of the hotel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What is it now, Chloé?” she asked, feeling emotionally drained after the day she had, which Chloe both did and didn’t know about.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why didn’t you give me my miraculous? I had my beam on!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve already explained to you, Chloé, that you can’t be Queen Bee anymore. Hawkmoth knows your identity, and lending you a miraculous again would just be too dangerous.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m an amazing superhero, not to mention that everyone in Paris loves me. You’re being utterly ridiculous and self-righteous by denying me my miraculous!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ladybug seethes, unable to put up with the nuisance that she has to deal with while in and out of the costume.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m self-righteous? I’m self-righteous?! I’m not the one who assaulted a conductor and hijacked a train full of innocent people just so that I could ‘save the day’ and be seen as a hero, not to mention failing to actually stop the train! I’m not the one who refused to hand back my miraculous and was akumatized when told to! I’m not the one who, in front of a camera that was live-streaming to the most-viewed news station in all of Paris, revealed my miraculous for all to see while in civilian form! Seriously, Chloé. Are you so idiotic that you couldn’t see how much danger doing that would put your family, your friends, and your classmates in? Or are you just so self-centered that you didn’t care and thought that none of that was important as long as you were in the spotlight? And you wonder why I don’t trust you in the slightest to actually act like an actual hero for once in your life!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You trusted me on Heroes’ Day! You trusted me when Sabrina was akumatized again and became Miraculer! Are you sure it’s a matter of trust, or is it a matter of how you’re just feeling that day?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sabrina was akumatized because of you! So many people have fallen victim to Hawkmoth because of you! Please, I am begging you: give me one reason why I should ever give you a miraculous again, the bee one or otherwise!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I need it!” Chloé snaps, stepping forward with a slam of her foot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something about the strain in Chloé’s voice and the way that her eyes shimmered in the roof’s floodlights made Ladybug pause, her anger fizzling and dissolving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you mean, ‘need it’?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chloé tilts her head, her eyes darting to the ground as she regretted what she said as she tightly pursed her lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just need it, okay? What’s so hard to understand about that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is this about Madame Bourgeois?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something about the mention of her mother sends electricity down Chloé’s spine, making her tremble, but only for a moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloé, I know that your mother can be harsh, but you have no reason to prove anything to her.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blonde ducks her head forward slightly as she suppresses a bitter laugh by clamping her jaw shut.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you ‘know’ so much about my mother and her relationship with me, then you would know that the idea of not having to prove anything is so wrong it’s laughable. Seriously, I thought that you were supposed to be the smart one,” Chloé sneers, too mad to treat her idol with kindness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ladybug finds herself furrowing her eyebrows once more in frustration, feeling as if she was facing Chloé as Marinette rather than a superhero. Still, she persists so as not to have to deal with another akuma.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know that you want her to be proud of y-“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know nothing!” Chloé yells, “This is ridiculous! How could you possibly understand what my world looks like?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then help me understand!” Ladybug roars, seething at being yelled at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two shoot daggers at each other, both wanting this conversation to be over with, or, better yet, that it never happened. There’s another beat of anger and tension before Chloé takes a deep breath and looks Ladybug in the eyes, her voice barren of emotion now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know what it’s like to feel as if you don’t exist to the only people that you should feel like the world to? Can you honestly look me in the eye and say that you’ve been there when your own mother thought that you were useless and thus left to another freaking continent without you? Can you relate, Ladybug, to feeling like a chore that your father has to deal with? As if you were nothing more than a task to sweep under the rug to be dealt with at another time?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look at me and honestly say that you have felt the desperation to do something, anything, in order to just get some sort of reaction from your own parents, and to still fail at that. Daddy’s returned to his office, and Mother’s back in New York. Tell me that you wouldn’t dream of becoming something that they would be proud of. To be able to be someone that they would look forward to pointing out to their friends and coworkers…I’d give anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloé…why are you telling me all this? It isn’t like you to-“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Have feelings?” Chloé snaps, almost shaking with rage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not what I meant.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But it’s what you were going to say.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chloé’s voice was bitter, and she tried desperately to ignore the lump in her throat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. What I was going to say was that it isn’t like you to open up to someone,” Ladybug says, trying to keep the venom from her words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why do you care? Why are you still even here? Do you not have anything better to do or something?” Chloé jabs, wanting the conversation to be over and done with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you snapping at me? I’m just trying to help!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not helping!” Chloé yells, “You’re. Not. Helping. Do you get that? Is that getting through to you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what do you want me to do?” Ladybug fires back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Give me the bee miraculous!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you so obsessed with being a superhero? I think we can all agree that you can be selfish at times, so why want to be something that’s all about helping others?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ladybug’s words sting, and Chloé’s anger burns down to sadness. Not wanting to have the headspace to think and spiral, she just talks, not really looking at Ladybug for longer than a few seconds at a time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just-. I thought that, if I could be Queen Bee, a superhero saving the day alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir, then maybe, just…maybe, they would look at me with pride rather than regret.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I never knew you felt this way,” Ladybug says quietly, wrapping her arms around herself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course not. Being weak would just make me even more useless. They don’t need another reason to sigh when having to deal with me, just like you do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloé-” Ladybug began, anger spiking before crashing again at noticing how vulnerable the blonde looked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me I’m wrong,” Chloé fires back, a tear finally rolling down her cheek, “Tell me that I’m not annoying, not something you have to deal with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ladybug tilts her head, biting back the ‘I can’t’ on her tongue. Biting her lower lip and sighing heavily, she wracks her brain for a clue on what to say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m utterly ridiculous and utterly useless,” Chloé mumbles, wishing that she had just continued going down the stairs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloé, if there’s one thing that you should know about me, it’s that I hate liars. And you, my friend, just told a lie.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, sometimes you’re annoying, and, yes, sometimes I do have to ‘deal’ with you. However, there are many words that I would use to describe you, Chloé Bourgeois, and ‘useless’ is not one of them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chloé attempts to stifle a sniffle by turning her head away, but Ladybug’s words sink deep into her. Sometimes, the severity of her actions sunk in. Sometimes, they didn’t and she despised the people that called her out or punished her for it. The ball was rolling, and it felt good to Chloé to keep saying things she’s never said before, even though she knew she’d probably regret it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you know that I’ve always been afraid during akuma attacks?” she whispers, Ladybug’s ears straining to hear her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When Hawkmoth first appeared, and you and Chat Noir saved me from Stoneheart, I knew from the beginning that I would never be like you guys, nor would I want to. What you do is demanding, not to mention terrifying. Why would I want that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And yet, when I found Pollen on the Eiffel Tower,” Chloé said, pausing as she shrugged her shoulders to herself, “I thought maybe I could be a superhero anyway. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I became Queen Bee anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If it makes you feel any better, I was scared at first, too. I had actually renounced my miraculous after I failed to capture and purify that first akuma.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I may not be able to relate to feeling as if I was worth less than my parents, but I know what it’s like to be afraid, to hesitate.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, but, when you actually call on me for help, I never hesitate to put the miraculous back on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ladybug wasn’t sure how to interpret Chloé’s tone and use of ‘actually’, so she just stayed quiet and let the confession continue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I always took the miraculous because, if I could save the day, then that would mean something to my parents. I would mean something to my parents.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t have asked you to fight if I knew you were afraid.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It doesn’t matter anymore anyway,” Chloé says bitterly, finally turning her back on Ladybug, her arms crossed as she stared at the night sky, “I just screwed it up. It’s all my fault, really. Could’ve guessed…should’ve known. Now, I do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Chloé crosses the rooftop to the stairwell, going through the door and closing it behind her, leaving Ladybug alone in the night. The blonde made it down a few stories before gripping the railing, sliding down until she was sitting on a stair. Trembling, she squeezes her eyes shut, gritting her teeth as she began to cry, tears and mascara running freely down her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous,” she hissed to herself, gripping the metal bars of the banister tightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It made her want to retch thinking about what she had just said, how vulnerable she just was to whom she considered to be the bravest person she ever met.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Up in the skies of Paris, Ladybug soared through the air, deep in thought about the new perspective she gained, both as Marinette and as Ladybug, about Chloe Bourgeois.</span>
</p>
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